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I hope I am posting this correctly, I made a mistake and posted in the wrong place before. I'm not even sure I am dealing a virus or malware.

My home computer makes an incessant, electronic-sounding, chirping noise. It is mindful of the noise Weatherbug makes when it wants attention, but I do not have that software installed (as far as I know). It's been ongoing for two months, except for about a one week period a couple of weeks after after running Ad Aware, Spybot and full virus software scans. It's back now with a vengence. The chirping begins within a minute of booting and then occurs at a random rate, sometimes 2-3 chirps in a ten second span, and then a silence for a half a minute before emitting another chirp.

Prior to this posting, I cleaned up with "cleanmgr", have updated and run Ad Aware, Spybot, Housecall, BitDefender, and Avert Stinger. Panda did not work for me. The Housecall scan ran twice and found old files in Quarantine from my earlier use of NAV, which I no longer use. The quarantined files were deleted by Housecall. The Adware scans did not find anything unusual, just routine TAC 3 level cookies. I have The Shield Firewall, and The Shield Antivirus 2007 current and operating. My Windows Security Updates are maintained as current.

Close all browsers and other windows except for HijackThis!, and click "Fix checked".

Go to start -> control panel -> Display properties -> Desktop -> Customize Desktop... -> Web tab, then uncheck and delete everything you find in there (except for "My current home page"),

Also remove the checkmark from the the Lock Desktop Items box if it is checked.Apply.Apply and Exit Display properties.

1. Download this file - combofix.exe2. Double click combofix.exe & follow the prompts.3. When finished, it will produce a log for you. Post that log in your next reply please, along with a new HijackThis log.

Note:Do not mouseclick combofix's window while it's running. That may cause it to stall.

Thanks,tea

Edited by teacup61, 15 October 2007 - 12:05 PM.

Please make a donation so I can keep helping people just like you.Every little bit helps! You can even use your credit card! Thank you!

Please print these instructions or copy them to Notepad (or another word processor), and save it for easier reference. This is because we will be in Safe Mode during the fix and you won’t be able to access the Internet to view these instructions.

This is a 30-day trial of the program -- This means that after 30 days the "background guard" protection will be de-activated. However, this version can continue to be manually updated and used as an on-demand scanner forever.

Once you have downloaded AVG Anti-Spyware, locate the icon on the desktop and double-click it to launch the setup program.

Once the setup is complete you will need to run AVG Anti-Spyware and update the definition files.

On the top of the main screen select the "Update" icon, then under the "Manual update" section click the "Start update" button.

The update will start and a progress bar will show the updates being installed.

Once the update has completed (the progress bar will display "Update successful!") select the "Scanner" icon at the top of the screen, then select the "Settings" tab.

After hearing your computer beep once during startup, but just before the Windows icon appears, begin tapping the F8 key on your keyboard. If you begin tapping the F8 key too soon, some computers display a "keyboard error" message. To resolve this, reboot the computer and try again.

Instead of Windows loading as normal, a menu should appear.

Using the arrow keys on the keyboard, scroll to and select the "Safe Mode" menu item, and then press "Enter".

Then please run a scan with AVG Anti-Spyware:

IMPORTANT: Do NOT open any other windows or programs while AVG Anti-Spyware is scanning, it may interfere with the scanning process.

Launch AVG Anti-Spyware by double-clicking the icon on your desktop.

Select the "Scanner" icon at the top and then the "Scan" tab. Click on "Complete System Scan".

AVG Anti-Spyware will now begin the scanning process, be patient this may take a little time.

Once the scan is complete do the following:

If you have any infections you will prompted, then select the "Apply all actions" button, AVG Anti-Spyware will then display "All actions have been applied" on the right hand side.

Next select the "Save Report" button at the bottom.

Then select the "Save report as" button in the lower left hand corner of the screen and save it as a text file on your system (make sure to remember where you saved that file, this is important!).

Close AVG Anti-Spyware and reboot your system normally into Windows. Please post the contents of the AVG Anti-Spyware report in your next reply, along with a new HijackThis log.

Thanks,tea

Please make a donation so I can keep helping people just like you.Every little bit helps! You can even use your credit card! Thank you!

Followed the instructions most optimistically but when I rebooted after the AVG scan in Safe Mode, the chirp is still with me. Btw, it did not chirp in Safe Mode. (I'm wondering if AIM could be culpable?)

I didn't find that file in that subdirectory, however, I found a jpeg with that file name at C:/DocumentsandSettings/Maggie!/MyDocuments/MyPictures/2004/Footloose/100_1483.JPG so I deleted it as instructed, emptied recycle bin and re-booted. (Sure hope my daughter doesn't find out I deleted that pic!)

Still chirping.

The computer seems suddenly sluggish, which is surprising in light of the housekeeping scans of the last few days, both before and since you're guidance.

Okay, let's go in another direction for a bit. I'm not really sure this is malware related.

I'll encourage you to run the Full Tests at PCPitstop. http://www.pcpitstop.com/pcpitstop/default.aspThis is an excellent diagnostics scan that may help in determining problems not related to malware. If you need help interpreting the results, you can either post back here with the Tech Express link, or have someone in the User to User forum help you out.

Thanks,tea

Please make a donation so I can keep helping people just like you.Every little bit helps! You can even use your credit card! Thank you!

I may have stumbled inadvertantly on the solution while running the pitstop scan! I turned off the virus protection and firewall and the chirping stopped. After further investigation and checking the settings, the firewall has a setting to "enable alert sound". I unchecked the box and haven't heard chipping in a few minutes.

Do you think the firewall was chirping because the computer was getting pinged or poked from the outside? That would be surprising to me because it's on a router which I thought also served as a hardware firewall.

For information, I use The Shield Firewall and The Shield Antivirus 2007, I think both are free.